Although a member of the Austrian People's Party and an outspoken conservative in private life, Korinek was considered non-partisan in his jurisprudence.

He clashed with Wolfgang Schüssel on health care and immigration reform and with Jörg Haider on minority protection matters; he received praise from political opponents for his firm stance on human rights issues in general.

In 1970, he submitted his habilitation thesis to the Faculty of Legal and Political Science (German: Rechts- und Staatswissenschaften) at the University of Salzburg.

In 1973, he left the Chamber to accept an appointment to full professor of public law (öffentliches Recht) at the University of Graz.

[5][6][7] He also served on the boards of directors of a number of publicly traded companies and NGOs,[8] most notably the Uniqa Insurance Group and the ERSTE Foundation.

[17][18] Commentators credit Korinek with having played a significant role in modernizing the tribunal's jurisprudence on constitutional rights questions;[19] the court itself agrees.

[10] Korinek is also credited for the fact that the court, under his leadership, has softened its traditional commitment to judicial restraint and has grown more assertive, protecting human rights principles more energetically and striking down laws more often.

Like his father before him, he joined the Austrian People's Party; he remained a card-carrying supporter when he was appointed to the Constitutional Court and only withdrew from membership when he was promoted to president.

[27] His outspoken conservatism and the circumstances of his promotion nonwithstanding, Korinek quickly acquired a reputation for integrity and non-partisan jurisprudence; he came to be widely respected across party lines.

The decision, easily the most controversial in the institution's history, earned Korinek Haider's and the Freedom Party's lasting enmity.

He advocated for transparency in government, called for an overhaul of Austria's outsized and convoluted constitution, and demanded that legislators put craftsmanship before ideology in drafting statutes.

[5][33] Starting in 1999, he served on the board of directors of the opera, one of a handful of positions he did not retire from even when he was made the president of the Constitutional Court.

[6][8][23] Korinek authored books on the relationship between government and the arts, on Joseph Haydn, and on the Der Rosenkavalier, a comic opera by Richard Strauss.